This invention relates to distribution frames and, more particularly, to apparatus for routing cables in a distribution frame.
Modern high speed telecommunications equipment increasingly relies on the use of optical fiber as a transmission medium, since it provides the bandwidth needed by customers. However, the optical fiber cables must be handled with care to prevent optical losses. When an optical fiber is bent, micro-cracking may occur and damage the expensive fiber cables. It is therefore important to control the bend radius of the fiber. As a general rule, fiber handling and packaging is much more restrictive than wire handling and packaging.
As customers demand higher bandwidth, the communications service providers are interested in purchasing the most compact system that takes up the least amount of floor space. Accordingly, increasingly higher fiber counts are packaged into a limited space. To complicate matters, optical fiber organization always involves slack management for two reasons:
1) Fiber termination can yield length variation that dictates its manufacturing tolerance; and PA1 2) It is desirable to have equal length fiber cables used for multiple equipment module locations.
To satisfy these constraints, it is known to use valuable space within the same bay frame or adding additional half width or full width bay frames to provide room for slack management. This is disadvantageous in that equipment space is always at a premium and adding additional bays takes up floor space. Further, using space in the same equipment bay is not always feasible since the same space is sought after for packaging active equipment. It would therefore be desirable to provide a cable management system which, in a limited amount of space, efficiently routes optical fiber cables, provides slack management, and routes the cables in a manner to minimize bending.